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This is an example of the large, soft-backed 'roll' sketchbooks that Turner favoured so much during the 1840s. Their name derives from the ability to roll them up and keep them in a pocket. Turner would take several on tour, along with smaller books, to be used for fleeting observations and thumb-nail sketches. The larger books were for more carefully selected compositions, which might well be used as the basis of a finished work. Drawing was often undoubtedly undertaken on the spot, and colouring too on occasion, although while on tour Turner also worked up studies later in his lodgings.